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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Maurice Goes To Huzzah.

Maurice for multiple players, a game for Huzzah, May 16-18 at the Double Tree, South Portland, Maine.

Well, I have reorganized my gaming life and have joined up with the Maine Wargamers. For the past 10 months I have enjoyed their gaming days and made new friendships. So, I figure it is time to give back.
The Maine Wargamers run a yearly convention called Huzzah. I have decided to help out, and wanted to use this as an opportunity to try a multi-player version of Maurice.
Here is my "poster" that will run on the groups Facebook page.

Below are the action tiles I'll use to tell me what each player has decided to do. The numbers indicate the number of extra cards to pull from the deck. I add these up and hand them to the CnC. Only he can perform an Interrupt action. I have run a double deck of cards, and added about nine of my own design. Some examples are shown on the right, below.

I went ahead and made some purpose built game boards, they are 2 foot by 3 foot units. The two predominate terrain features during the fight were a dry river course and a mango orchard surrounded by a mud wall.

I had great fun making the elevated gun platform. I used basswood and an old pencil and some Museum miniature bullocks as traction. There is also an old Mike's Models elephant directing from the rear of the platform.

The elephants are acting as attached light artillery to the massed infantry units. They only fire if stationary and there is a volley phase. I decided not to rebase from Principle of war and just go with the routed on fifth disorder.

Here are some other angles showing Raju Sahib's princely forces. As you see I have given each CnC a Morale Loss chart to roll loses to morale on, once morale hits zero the game is done. Oh, that is Raju in the "circus" elephant.

Again, above on the right are the Mughal cavalry with their attendant zamburaks. These camel guns act as attached light artillery and fire only if stationary and there is volley phase. The right side picture shows the French troops that helped to prevent Captain Clive's advance upon Vendalur.

The long road to Vendalur, flanked by the dry river bed on the right and the mango grove on the left. Blocking the road a large contingent of fairly agitated Mughal troops, supported by their French allies.

Captain Clive has the Madras Europeans lead the way, followed by the artillery train and sepoy grenadiers. Hired light horsemen guard the column's flanks. More sepoy cavalry are just seen on the right. Another column is preparing to scout the grove.

Here from right to left are sepoy horse, Bengal Europeans, Bengal sepoy grenadiers, and 1st Bengal Native infantry.

The Maurice rules have worked quite well through two play tests. I had initially had Raju decide whether he would command the cavalry force of the infantry force blocking the road. I have settled on the Mughal prince having command of the blocking force, and rolling a random die for a subordinate to have command of the cavalry.

I found that in the first case, when the cavalry force became engaged, it was difficult to leave them to give command to the blocking force. This way the British have action to their front on all flanks!